one element of our design that i was so excited to incorporate, one i adore on my travels to italy this year, timeless and grounded was the use of stone on the exterior. how to do that in a way that felt like it had been here for years and also helped with an element of our design that changed: the walkout basement.

this is where polycor hardscapes came into play. If you’ve been following along with our home build process you know that I did not want a walkout basement. Primarily for the added costs and the change to the exterior of our home. I wanted our home to feel nestled into the hillside, a part of the landscapes and to walk off the porches into the prairie. We still have that feeling on the north front porch and the west back deck. But because of the slope of our site, the eastern exterior of the house needed a walkout basement.

enter exterior stone. If we were going to have a three story view of the house, I really wanted to ground this element, cut the visual so it wouldn’t be wall of siding, and make this element feel like it had been here for ages, and turned to old farmhouses for inspiration. We went with vertical board and batten siding and horizontal siding to further cut the feeling of an elongated side.

it’s energy is electrifying. shaking things up for clarity’s sake. it’s setting us on a new path. and we have electricity now at the land. are you ready for what comes next?

under this aries full moon, I’m releasing, shedding through somatic embodiment of my anger, pain, and resentment. at this moon we look back on the spring Aires new moon, what energies were shifting within you then + what has changed + taken on new life? this full moon I took my energies to the soil, digging trenches + moving soil at our land for planting spring bulbs. a hope shot.

I’ve found myself at the tail end of a cycle. Emotionally, physically + spiritually, i’ve felt stuck in old mindsets, still nursing old wounds, but deeply craving a shift in perspective. The old mindset of trying really hard to make things work, to finesse metaphorical square pegs into round holes and trying please everyone over myself and the wishes that dwelled within my heart.

This weekend, we spent the morning chasing baby bantams chicks at the homestead of our close family friends. Their home, in fact, was the first place that welcomed me into the Driftless. A place so dear to my heart built over time, infused with their magic, love and creative spirit. They, when young like us, lived on this piece of land in a trailer and over the years have build the most magical and loving place. Their story served as sort of blueprint + inspiration for our own dreams for our land.

when we realized we couldn’t make this house we love bigger, we went on a hunt. we started looking for old farmhouses. it’s been my dream to fix up an old farmhouse, Joanna Gaines Fixer Upper anyone?